Reva sat alone in her room long after the house had gone quiet. The party clothes were folded away; the blue sari lay draped across a chair like a tired wave. From somewhere far off she could hear Vikrant’s faint laughter on the phone—one of his endless late calls. Whether it was a friend or another woman she no longer cared to guess. The sound felt like the echo of years she had already mourned.

She closed her eyes and let the memories come.
Her own bachelorette evening so many years ago—everyone offering tiaras and teasing crowns—she had refused them all. Even then he had been absent, busy elsewhere, busy with someone else. From the very start she had known what kind of marriage she was stepping into, and she had gone anyway, because choice had never really been offered.